This month we used vintage photographs as our jumping off point for writing ekphrastic poems. There were no other rules at all, except that we are using this overarching (underlying?) theme of conversation this year.
My photograph is one my maternal grandfather took of me as a toddler. I’m walking on the beach, alongside Lake Michigan, and he’s up on the bank. Some other adult — probably my mother — is surely just out of the frame, but you’d never know it. I’d never know it.
When I look at this photograph I think, I always knew how to be alone.
My poem, a villanelle, became a conversation between me and my child-self, obviously. But also, maybe, between me and my grandfather. I’m grateful to him for capturing this. For capturing me.
(PS this is still a draft but it’s been A WEEK, and it’s Friday already, so I’ll post what I’ve got and life goes on…)
The Little Girl We See
By Liz Garton Scanlon
She doesn’t know yet who she’ll be
The clock is started, limbs mid-stride
The little girl we see is me
Loved and unguarded equally
A certain dreaminess abides
She doesn’t know yet who she’ll be
Made precious here, by lens and tree
(Though we all know the frame is wide)
The little girl we see is me
When left alone like this, she’s free
A rolling swash line by her side
She doesn’t know yet who she’ll be
Unhindered, still, by some degree
She tugs her strap up, does not hide
The little girl we see is me
Just strolling with Calliope –
already I’m amazement’s bride!
I don’t know yet just who I’ll be
This little girl we see me
Read the others here:
Laura
Sara
Tricia
Mary Lee
Tanita
Poetry Friday is at My Juicy Little Universe this week!
And if you’d like to write with us in May, we’re writing Golden Shovel poems, using a line (any line) from Elizabeth Bishop’s Letter to NY. Join us?
